Fred Mandel

Who is Fred Mandel?

Frederick Lawrence "Fred" Mandel is a Canadian session musician. He is a keyboard player and guitarist.

Mandel became involved in music from an early age. He started playing the piano and age 4 and picked up the guitar aged 8. In 1964, at the age of 11, his family moved to Toronto where he became immersed in the local music scene being lucky enough to see many major sixties acts such as Jimi Hendrix, The Who and The Rolling Stones play.

Mandel made his first appearance on record courtesy of Domenic Troiano. Troiano was invited to record Alice Cooper's first solo record and got Mandel to play keyboards on the record. This led to Alice Cooper inviting Mandel to join his band the Nightmare Band. Mandel did this for four years progressing from keyboards to lead guitar and finally ending up working as the musical director.

Following his work with Alice Cooper, Mandel was invited to play keyboards on the Pink Floyd album The Wall and this was followed up by some recordings with Cheap Trick.

In the 1980s Mandel was asked to perform with Queen on their 1982 tour supporting their album Hot Space.